1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of connectors, more specifically to connectors suitable for high data rates.
2. Description of Related Art
Connectors suitable for relatively high data rates (greater than 10 Gbps) are known. For example, upcoming standards for high-data rate connectors offer 10 Gbps per channel and some include 12 two-way channels. In order to be compatible with optical channel data rates, however, there is increasing interest in being able to offer 25 Gbps capable connectors.
One issue that has been observed is a tendency for energy on the ground structure in a connector to resonate as the signaling frequency increases such that the wave length of the signaling frequency approaches the electrical length of the terminals in the connector. For stacked connectors, it is difficult to shorten the terminals and therefore, as signaling frequencies of 10+ GHz, there tends to be substantial resonance in frequencies. It has been determined that for connector systems with terminals on a board mounted connector and a circuit card in a mating plug connector, it is possible to damped the resonance and reduce the resultant noise by employing a circuit card as illustrated in FIG. 1. As can be appreciated, two adjacent ground traces are coupled via a resistor to a median ground trace. The two adjacent ground traces and the median ground trace extend a distance until they are commoned together at an opposite end of the circuit card. More regarding this is construction and functionality is disclosed in International Patent Application No. PCT/US09/051409, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. It has been determined that while such a design is effective, it tends to be difficult to package in certain applications. Therefore, certain individuals would appreciate a circuit card with additional improvements.